Teesside performer Chris Stoddart reveals to Viv Hardwick that he raced back from Spain to clinch his first big professional role in Joseph.

THE appeal of Joseph seems never-ending and, in the case of young Middlesbrough performer Chris Stoddart, led to him halting a holiday in Spain after two days after being called back for auditions.

“I went along to the audition where they were testing you out to see if you could sing and then I went on holiday to visit my aunty and uncle in Spain. Then I got a call saying I’d been re-called, so I decided to fly back and cut my two week holiday short after two days. It was touch and go and I said to my agent ‘what should I do?’ and she said ‘it’s up to you, I’m not going to tell you to come back off your holiday’. But I knew this was a chance I couldn’t let go,” he says.

“I was really pleased to get this job because it’s a show I’ve always wanted to be in. It’s the first show I ever knew as a musical and I was really pleased when my agent called me about the job… and I was over the moon when I got the job just over a year ago,” Stoddart adds..

So does Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, the first successful musical for Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber, live up to expectations on the other side of the spotlights?

“It’s brilliant, especially being on tour. You’re thrown in at the deep end because you’re straight into the show and I was lucky to have a week of rehearsal because I was part of an entire cast change.

We’ve had three more cast changes since I started and these people only get to rehearse an hour every day and then they are on in the space of a week.

“We do 12 shows a week, so finding time for new people to rehearse is difficult, particularly when you have a matinee and then rehearse between 4.30pm and 6pm before going back on for the evening show. It’s pretty intense,” explains Stoddart who is the show’s dance captain and also performs as the alternate Pharoah.

“I was made dance captain in December and it’s interesting how quickly it changes when you’re watching other people performing on stage and making sure everyone gets the steps right. I’m also playing Pharaoh for three shows on Saturday at Darlington and it’s been about a year since I last performed the role. The current Pharaon (Australian Lachlan Scheuber) is very reluctant to take any time off,” he jokes.

A lot of his family and friends will be coming along to watch Stoddart, who trained a London’s Mountview Academy of Theatre Arts, play his big role on the Saturday.

The part is famous for its Elvis impersonation and Stoddart admits he was selected as understudy because a cast member was required as a stand-in for one night.

“I was originally cast as Dan – the most normal name out of all Joseph’s 11 brothers – but they asked me to try out for the role and after a couple of rehearsals I was chosen. It’s a testing character role because the portrayal is pretty specific to Elvis,” he says. Stoddart started out at a Saturday morning drama school, Spotlight Performing Arts, run by the late Lindsey Fitzgerald in Acklam, and says: “I learnt everything I knew from her. Sadly, she passed away and now her daughter, Amy, is running the school, which has other schools at Yarm and Redcar, and I feel quite a strong link with it because I grew up there. So whenever I get back I try and teach there. After that, when I left Acklam Grange School, I did Performing Arts at Stockton College and went to Mountview for three years where I was lucky enough to get a scholarship. The big thing you find is that things are so much more expensive than the North-East of England, even little things like a pint of lager,” he explains.

Stoddart feels his breakthrough into Bill Kenwright’s touring version of Joseph was down to luck.

“You do all the training and tick all the boxes but you need that lucky audition. I graduated from Mountview in April 2009 and, between then and September, I went to every audition you could imagine and didn’t get anything, even though I reached the final stages of several shows.”

Now he’s literally putting everything into his stage performance and currently holds the record for going through dance shoes on tour.

“I think on into my fifth pair or something,” he laughs.

■ Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, Darlington Civic Theatre, Tuesday- Sunday. Tickets: £13.50-£26. Box Office: 01325- 486-555; darlingtonarts.co.uk

■ Also, November 2-7, Grand Opera House, York. 0844-847-2322